The subject matter discussed in the background section should not be assumed to be prior art merely as a result of its mention in the background section. Similarly, a problem mentioned in the background section or associated with the subject matter of the background section should not be assumed to have been previously recognized in the prior art. The subject matter in the background section merely represents different approaches, which in and of themselves may also be inventions.
The most common methods of receiving audio and/or video are the free public broadcast. The most popular among the free public broadcasts are AM and FM for the radio and VHF/UHF for television broadcast. These conventional methods of receiving Audio/video content do not have the capability of receiving the user's feedback information indicative of a source of the audio and/or video content in real time. Hence the user does not have any control over the content he or she is tuned to. However free public broadcast is still the preferred method to get a live broadcast and the most popular method.
Several subscription based broadcast technologies are available in the last few years. Even though subscription based broadcast services, such as the satellite radio and television broadcasts, provide a wide range of choices they are still incapable of receiving user feed back and responding in real time.
Some cable based broadcast services, when subscribed to, have the limited capability of broadcasting content on demand. However all these subscription based services come with huge subscription fees and a small number of choices.
Currently, in order to play a particular content whenever the user desires to, the user needs to own the content in a portable format, such as a cassette, compact disc, or an audio file, and a playback equipment capable of playing the portable media. The technologies for storing portable media have evolved from the days of gramophone records to the modern day DVD. The quality of the audio and video content has improved along with a significant reduction in the size of the content, enabling users to save huge amounts of audio and video content in small, compact devices. This has led to number of types of media players, which are incompatible with each other. An example of two incompatible media players is a cassette player and a CD player.
Unauthorized duplication of audio and video is a problem and causes revenue loss for copyright owners. The advent of different kinds of portable media which can be played back on a computer, and computer software applications that enable users to easily copy from the portable media, compress and distribute audio/video content has only compounded this problem.
Many Internet based services are available where users can select and play from a collection of content available. The quality of the content is not guaranteed and a computer is always necessary to playback. Some of these services are also subscription based.